I won NaNoWriMo in 2013. At my lowest point, I was 13,000 words behind. The stresses of real life, extracurriculars, and more homework left my word-count lagging far behind. On the last day, a Saturday, I knew I was going to finish. I was 11,000 words behind, which would require 5.5 hours of solid writing. I was out all day doing family stuff, but I finally got to write at 9 PM.
I crammed, using Write or Die, and switched my time-zone so I could write past midnight without the server recognizing that and making me not a winner. (Tricky, I know. I can't take credit for this idea. A guy in my region helped me with it.) Finally, at about 2 AM, I validated and was victorious. My characters were messy, and my plot was basically nonexistent, as usual, but I wrote about 20,000 words more than I thought I'd be able to, so it's still a success. My reward for myself was these brownies. (Seriously, if you love chocolate, you have to try them. Store-bought will never be the same again.)
Since taking a break from my mostly-finished first-draft of BILC, I've been editing: creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. I'm submitting all of the above to the Scholastic Writing Awards, so that should be fun. I think I'll do well and, if I don't, there's always next year.
When not writing novels, I've also had the pleasure to read Zara Hoffman's debut, The Belgrave Daughter. I'll be reviewing that tomorrow.
Yay! Congrats for winning NaNo! (Psst...I KNEW you could do it.) XD
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your Nano win! I stumbled onto your site while participating this year, but Nano kudos do not have an expiration date. :)
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